RITES OF PASSAGE (2011) (BLU-RAY)

The Charge

Opening Statement

A dark horror comedy that sniffs around being something semi-interesting,
before succumbing to its own mediocrity.

Facts of the Case

At the University of California Santa Barbara, the students are renowned for
partying hard with little or no thought of consequence and communicable disease.
The faculty get in on the action too, especially the roguish Professor Nash
(Stephen Dorff, Brake), anthropology guru and general hornball. His
professional curiosities are piqued when one of his students proposes a
re-creation of a Native American ritual.

A weekend that is sure to include fornication and substance abuse is
curtailed when the student's whack-job older brother Ben (Wes Bentley, The
Hunger Games) starts tripping out on a Chumash tribal drug and turns into a
homicidal maniac. Adding to the mayhem is Ben's pal and drug dealer, Delgado
(Christian Slater, Broken Arrow), a psycho who visualizes a talking
monkey clinging to his shotgun.

The Evidence

I tend to piss and moan a lot about crappy horror movies that stay away from
risks and innovation, opting instead for rehashing the same old tropes and
conventions. So it's with a smidgen of sheepishness I throw darts at Rites of
Passage, which actually tries a bunch of different things, from structure to
execution. It's obvious the filmmakers are trying to separate their work from
the ho-hum inadequacy that crowds their genre. Yet in their eagerness to craft
something different, they forgot to make their movie fun.

I'm not saying this needs to be breezy or light-hearted. There are macabre
elements at work, but Rites of Passage still has to unload some thrills
right? Right?

Ah...no. Typical to a film that tries to be many things to many tastes,
Rites of Passage falls short in all regards. As a comedy, the gags are
limited to the surreal monkey hallucination sequences featuring Christian
Slater. I'll admit I found them oddly compelling the first go-round, but these
scenes just don't jibe with the rest of the film's considerably darker tone. It
becomes bizarre more than anything.

For the horror stuff, I fear you'll also be left wanting. There is very
little bloodshed, so gorehounds won't walk away satiated. And the suspense
revolves around Wes Bentley's character's unpredictable behavior, which is
unpredictable because he's hopped up on some bad juju. While under the
influence, he'll kidnap co-eds and dress them up in Native American garb, so
there's some limited women-in-peril thrills, but that's about the extent of the
terror. The mayhem culminates when everyone gets going in a drug-fueled haze,
leading to their sporadic demise and an extended face-off with the big bad, all
of which ends in dull, forgettable fashion.

The Blu-ray is technically solid. Out front, the 1.85:1/1080p transfer is a
winner. Clear and detailed throughout, the visuals pump out some bodacious
California imagery. Sound flows cleanly from a DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio mix. One
extra: a making-of featurette.

Closing Statement

Despite the star power -- the best acting, unsurprisingly, belonging to the
recognizable faces -- the willingness to mix tones and the slick look, Rites
of Passage falters.